Cardiac Rehabilitation is a Work of Heart

They took my blood pressure.

And they didn’t give it back.

It was early, but not as early as the dawning of a day when I was wandering around Gulf Shores, Alabama, in pursuit of the world’s most beautiful bird. I had no idea what species it was, but I wanted to see it. 

I encountered a fellow seated at an outdoor table and welcoming the sunrise with an adult beverage. He asked what I was doing.

“Looking for birds,” I said, raising my binoculars.

He sipped his alcohol and said, “A little early for that sort of thing, isn’t it?”

Every bump in life’s road comes too early.

I’ve embarked on a new adventure. Cardiac rehabilitation. A surgery sent me there.

We have places we go to relax. Maybe it’s that villa on the Mediterranean Sea. Then we have those places we go to not relax – like the ICU.

I’d been stabbed fore and aft with various surgical instruments and left with as many holes in my body as Clyde of Bonnie and Clyde. I was in considerably better condition than Clyde, and hovered between deranged optimism and feeling as if my socks were untied. The surgery that had gone through my big toe and my elbow to get to my heart had knocked me off-kilter. I needed to climb back on kilter before I lost my nerve.

I met a friend at the Medicine Square Clinic. He felt like a bug on the front bumper after enduring a colonoscopy prep day and a slippery adventure. His driveway looked icy. That’s because it was icy. He tested it. He got the word “Oh” out before he hit the ice with a resounding thud. While on his back, he uttered a word that followed the “Oh.” You can put any word you want for the second one in a familiar pair. I’m going with “no,” but I might be wrong.

He suffered minimal damage. He was there for a colonoscopy, which is a snap when compared to the preparation.

I was there for cardiac rehabilitation. That’s where you go if you grew up thinking Wonder Bread was a vegetable. I slave away on several machines meant to do me some good and keep me from becoming a historical footnote. I don’t need to wear steel-toed shoes for the rehab. That’s a plus.

Each day of rehab begins with a weigh-in like a boxer before a bout, before I tackle the exercise contraptions. After my weight is recorded, I remind myself that 200 pounds is the new 190.

I looked for familiar playground equipment – a slide or a swing – and finding none, I used a recumbent elliptical cross-trainer step-challenger with a 121-cubic-inch Harley engine and baby moon hubcaps exercise machine. The treadmill wasn’t new to me, but some people unfairly refer to it as a dreadmill, walk of shame or Satan’s sidewalk. There were no whining exercises available. Luckily, being a husband, I don’t need whining practice.

None of the exercise machines bucked like a rodeo bronco.

All that exertion might not bring juvenescence, but it lifts a wobbly heart.

I’m a big fan of the funny pages and the iconic gag where Lucy pulls the football away before Charlie Brown can kick it. Despite being tricked countless times, Charlie Brown believes her promise to hold the ball, and is rewarded by having to yell “AAUGH!” before falling flat on his back. This symbolizes life’s recurring disappointments and enduring hope amidst adversity.

I walk a lot, but I don’t try to kick a football.

After surgery, I felt like one of those bent-over plywood garden grandmas – a bit weathered but still standing.

John Prine sang, “It’s a big old goofy world.” It’s a big old goofy world in which I long to feel gooder than mashed potatoes.

There is a song that’s being sung off-key in my heart, but my ticker still remembers the words.

When I was a boy, there was a village near me named Bath. I think it had a population of three. It has since slid off the map. I thought if it had a motto, it would be “Good enough.”

I have being better than good enough on my bliss list.

The beat goes on.